So certain characteristics that we associate with modern Homo sapiens may have actually developed in east Asia, and were only later carried to Africa. We’ll still need further comparisons between the Dali skull and the Moroccan ones. But the implications are enormous; we’re talking about rewriting the origins of our species as we know it, reassessing how our ancestors migrated and interacted and subsequently evolved.

“In a real sense we are talking about a multiregional population, connected recurrently by migration and genetic exchanges,” John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison told New Scientist.